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Researchers developed a blood test technique called liquid biopsies to trace cancer.
STATES CHRONICLE – Scientists succeeded in developing a better technology which helps them spot cancer earlier through a revolutionary blood test technique. This will be very useful in developing lung cancer treatments. Through these blood tests, researchers follow tumors’ genetic alterations while they progress. The experimental blood test is meant to trace DNA bits shed in the blood by the tumor.
Liquid biopsies help doctors track cancer a year before the diseases can be spotted through screening
Specialists were able to determine signs of cancers even a year before imaging scans could trace such a disease, given patients the chance to try new treatments sooner, before the illness settles in and takes over the body. This blood test is called liquid biopsies and was designed to examine cancer by implementing the use of blood rather than samples of tissue.
Some doctors use such tests to help and offer guidance for patients who are in advanced stages of cancer. This is the first time when scientists used this method to trace the evolution of tumors inside the body. They detected lung cancer a year before the diseases settled in, thus, offering patients the chance to benefit from a better treatment.
This special type of blood test could help develop new cure for lung cancer
Approximately one-third of all lung cancer cases in the US are discovered during their early stage and even a more decreased number of cases in other countries of the world. Nevertheless, as technology and medicine advance, in the future, probably many people will be able to detect the disease earlier when screening longtime smokers who present a high risk of developing lung cancer.
Usually, specialists argue that early-stage cancer cases are treated by undergoing surgery. Afterward, many patients undergo chemotherapy, but this was proved to help only a few of them. Dr. Charles Swatone of the Francis Crick Institute in London stated that they needed to treat about 20 patients out of which only one was cured. Along the way, many side effects can appear, and the treatment becomes even tougher.
Swanton’s new study reveals that liquid biopsies might help establish which patients would or wouldn’t benefit from chemotherapy. Thus, they may be able to warn specialists about the treatment, saying whether it is working or not. The new study was published online on April 26 by the New England Journal of Medicine and Nature magazine. The study was funded by Cancer Research UK charity organization.
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